


Skin to Skin

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [9]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: 5 Times, M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Erik, freshly rescued from solitary confinement, hasn't touched another person in years.Five times Charles made the first move and one time Erik did.(On Tumblrhere.)





	

(1)   Erik’s never thought of himself as a masochist, but he has to admit that right now, even though his face hurts, he feels wonderful. Maybe he’s just that happy to see Charles again. He’s even happy that Charles punched him. Provoking that much reaction is a good sign; it would have been much more alarming to Erik if Charles had seemed indifferent to his presence. _Punch me again,_ Erik wants to say. _Kick me, throw me down on the floor, I don’t care what you do as long as you’re touching me._

(2)   He gets something like his wish only moments later, when the humans inevitably pull guns, and Erik lets his own weapons rise against them—all the metal in the room, humming like a half-forgotten lullaby against his senses. When Charles half-turns, pushing Erik back with a shouted “No!”, for a fraction of a moment Erik thinks he’s protecting _him,_ not—of course—the very men threatening them. He almost doesn’t care. He’d threaten a good many more worthless humans to feel the pressure of that hand over his beating heart.

(3)   It’s worse on the plane. Charles grabs him by the shirtfront and in the midst of all Erik’s rage and pain and betrayal and guilt and overwhelmed grief for past and future, it’s all he can do not to grab Charles in return—pull him tight against his own chest and hold him there, kicking and struggling no doubt, but warm and alive and real.

(4)   During their third chess game—both of them embarrassingly rusty and teasing each other about it—Logan finally falls asleep, leaving them essentially alone together. Charles’s feet bump his under the table, and they inch closer and closer together, until eventually their legs are tangled tightly together. Neither says anything about it. Neither moves away.

(5)   They arrive at the hotel in Paris at nearly three in the morning. Hank is too exhausted to care that they only have two rooms, asleep before his body hits the mattress, and Logan seems determined that Charles and Erik will share the other room, muttering something about learning to communicate. But if any communication takes place that night, it’s of the silent variety; Charles crawls into bed behind Erik, one hand brushing up Erik’s spine, and Erik turns over and wraps himself around him, breath shuddering, every ounce of him _needing, needing_ to hold and be held, to feel arms around him and breath against his skin, evidence of another human being in a world outside white walls. He might have been content with that; it’s Charles who takes it further, skimming his hands up Erik’s ribs beneath his shirt and pressing their lips together. After ten years alone, Erik feels clumsy and strangely fragile—but he doesn’t say no, never considers it. And when it’s over, he falls asleep holding Charles as tightly as he can.  
  
He knows, by then, what has to be done about Raven. How soon he will have to let Charles go.

(1)   Incredibly, when all is said and done on the White House lawn, Charles lets him leave. Doesn’t send him back to prison or burn his brain out from the inside—actually lets him leave. And Erik knows why. Because the two of them, in some distant and hopefully unraveled future, came back together, joined forces at last to protect their people. They did it once. They can do it again. Charles believes that.  
  
Maybe, Erik thinks as he hovers at Charles’s window, their gazes locked, his heart in his throat—maybe he can believe it, too.  
  
Nothing in the world seems to move as he reaches for Charles’s hand—and Charles’s fingertips glide softly, slowly against his skin, gripping tightly as he settles their palms together.


End file.
